Construction Recruiters, Inc.

AI didn't threaten my business. It cleared out the competition. Every recruiter with a laptop and a LinkedIn subscription can now send 500 automated InMails before lunch. Keyword-matched. Sequence-loaded. Personalized with your first name and your current employer pulled straight from a database. That's not recruiting. Here's what actually happened when AI hit the recruiting world: it made the lazy ones faster. Suddenly, every generalist agency could spray the market at scale. Volume went up. Quality went nowhere. And candidates stopped responding to cold outreach almost entirely. I get it. If I were getting ten generic messages a week from recruiters who'd never set foot on a job site, I'd stop reading them, too. But here's the thing. When I reach out to someone, it's because I know who they are. I know their firm. I know how they build. I have a reason to pick up the phone, send that email or text. If I don’t know you, I'm sure I know someone who does. I got a call from a superintendent I placed four years ago, who just went through a divorce and needs to be closer to his kids. I knew that because he told me. No AI recruiter or chatbot is getting that call. Turns out you can't automate knowing people. When you hear from me, it's not a sequence. It's a conversation worth having. Call me. I'm Colm.  617.216.3666

Some people respond to my outreach with slurs and middle finger emojis. I'm not offended. But now I am informed. Recruitment marketing is part of my job. I reach out to a lot of people. Most happily employed people ignore me. Some reply not interested. Both are fine. But some people take the time to write back with something unprintable. Slurs, profanity, aggression. They put that in writing. Forever to be recorded. I've been doing this for 26 years. I've been on the receiving end of more direct rejection in six months than most people receive in a lifetime. I have a pretty thick skin, but it still surprises me how some people respond. The construction industry in Massachusetts is smaller than people think. Your reputation travels faster than a resume. Someone who responds to simple outreach with that kind of language is not a top-tier candidate. Doesn't matter how good their work is or what the resume says. It's just a matter of time until they talk like that to the wrong person. A subcontractor, client, or coworker. They could unsubscribe. They could reply and say not interested. They could ignore it entirely. All reasonable options. The people who lead with aggression when nobody is watching tell me exactly what I need to know. Vulgar and angry responses scream that they are “C” grade candidates. I won't be following up. And in an industry this small, I won't recommend them either. I'm available for confidential, civilized conversations about career options. Call me. Colm | 617.216.3666

When "better" is a low bar for changing jobs.   After 26 years in construction recruiting, I wish people did more research before making a career move.   Changing jobs just for more money solves the immediate problem. It doesn't fix a bad culture, a weak leader, or a contractor that overpromises and underdelivers.   Someone leaves a difficult situation and takes the first thing that feels better. "Better" is a low bar for the long-term.   Before you take that next position, use every digital asset you can find to research the company you're considering.   Know what you're walking into, not just what you're walking away from.   4 easy, free ways to do that:   1. LinkedIn outreach Find someone currently in the team you're considering. Reach out directly. Then find someone who left. They'll be more direct.   Ask both of them: What does success actually look like there? What is the biggest challenge right now? How would you describe the leadership? Why did the last person leave? Would you work there again?   2. Glassdoor Read the reviews. Look at pay and benefits. Read the interview experiences.   3. Indeed Same drill. Reviews, salaries, Q&A, interviews. Different people post there than on Glassdoor.   4. Call me. If you're thinking about a move and want a straight conversation about what some of these companies are actually like to work for, I'm easy to reach.   Your reputation travels farther than your resume. In this market, everybody knows everybody. A short tenure that looks like a mistake will follow you for the next five years.   Move carefully. Move deliberately. Find out what you can before you take that next step.   Call or text anytime. Colm | 617.216.3666

Oracle just laid off 30,000 people with a 6 am email: "Today is your last day." That's it. No conversation. No warning. No respect for the years people gave that company. The retirement "gold watch" died a long time ago. These companies just keep proving it. I'm not here to bash Oracle specifically. It's happening everywhere, and over the next few years, it'll affect every industry: ❎ Citigroup - 20,000 ❎ Nestle - 20,000 ❎ Bosch - 13,000 ❎ Ford - 11,000 ❎ Heineken - 6,000 ❎ Disney “The Happiest Place on Earth” - 1,000 You know the drill: "it's just business". When the numbers stop working for the business, you're gone. So, where does that leave you? Loyalty that only runs one way isn't loyalty. It's habit. And habit looks a lot like comfort. I talk to construction professionals all the time who have been somewhere six, seven years. Good at their jobs. Delivering. Waiting. Waiting for the promotion that keeps getting pushed. Waiting for the comp conversation that never quite gets there. Hanging in for the “bonus” that doesn’t even keep up with inflation. Waiting to feel like it's the right time to look around. There is no right time. There's just time passing. Your employer is not losing sleep over your career trajectory. They're managing a business. That's their job. Managing your career is your job. I'm not telling you to be disloyal. I'm telling you to be clear-eyed. The best contractors in this market are still hiring. They need people. The window on some of those opportunities doesn't stay open forever. You don't need permission to look out for yourself. If that conversation is overdue, I'm easy to reach. Call me. Colm | 617.216.3666

The Dirty Little Secret: Job Ads Don't Work Anymore A client called me last month. Good company, strong backlog, great reputation. They'd had a PM role posted on Indeed for four weeks. Over 100 applicants. They interviewed three. Hired none. That's the dirty little secret. Remember Monster, CareerBuilder, the Boston Globe classifieds? Gone. Museum pieces. Today the entire job-ad universe is controlled by LinkedIn and Indeed, and that's exactly the problem. Your ad is buried. Every construction job on earth is posted on the same two platforms, fighting for the same eyeballs. Most of the applicants aren't local, aren't qualified, or aren't authorized to work here. The people you actually interview can't run real work. They look good on paper because they were built to look good on paper. And the biggest truth of all: job ads are only seen by people actively looking for work. In a full-employment construction market, the Superintendents, PMs, Estimators you actually want aren't scrolling job boards. They're working. We spend every day talking to construction professionals. Not bots. Not resumes. People. We know when a GC has a quiet hiring hole. We know when a Superintendent is open to a conversation even though he's "happy enough." We know which companies are thriving, which are struggling, and who's quietly replacing whom. Job ads chase the unemployed. We talk to the employed. If you want the candidates nobody else even knows are available, talk to someone who's on the street every day. Call me. Colm | 617.216.3666